The Akatosh Dillema
by SirSpasmVonSpinne
Summary: With Alduin gone, Paarthurnax has spread "The Way of The Voice throughout Skyrim, slowly leading the Dovah into a new age of relative peace. However, in the wake of a new Dragon Break and five Dragonborns in Nirn, Skyrim song may soon come to a very hot, sudden end


The Akatosh Dilemma

So many possibilities. From every sword through the heart and bee in the wind, from the wildest fires to the passing clink of a rusted coin, worlds were made. The Dragon God had many heads and could watch them all but so few timelines had his Dragonborns.

In one, a bandit lookout was slumped against a wall, his blood spurting out of a gash in his belly. His gang had called him Krev and he pushed his remaining hand down over his wound, crimson snaking out from between his stubby fingers. He could hear screaming from further down the mine, desperate and quickly cut short by sharp teeth and jagged claws. His head was strangely clear now that he was dying. He tried to recall what had chewed off his hand and opened him up like a tavern wench's shirt _but a Nords last thoughts should be of home_. He couldn't remember who told him that, maybe his father before Krev put an axe between his eyes and looted the clothes of his back. Now he remembered. It was a fucking Dunmer, of all people who had entered the mine. He didn't see Krev, crouched in a shadowy corner coming down off a skooma high, so Krev shivved him right in the spine and started rummaging through pockets. _I should of cut his throat, maybe that would of stopped that fucking elf growing teeth and claws and eating my hand._

The screaming had stopped by now. Dathis had thought he had finished a job and had a hand against the mine door when a groan caught his attention. Dathis unhooked his crossbow and found Krev where he left him. Krev raised his stump, "Mercy pl-". Krev was cut short. A bolt had sprouted from his neck. And Dathis left the mine.

In another, steel rivulets ran down Krev's sword. He was a bandit Chief this time and corpses of his gang were strewn around the battlements of his fort. Furyblade's sword arced with fire and rippled the air around it as it was swung high and low, striking at Krev's head, chest and legs, leaving long red smiles were it licked Krev's plate. Molten steel dripped through Krev's gauntlets. Pain seared through his arm, forcing a curse to spit out his mouth. "You bloody cat!" Furyblade fur bristled, his sword carving at Krev's side, forcing him into a quick backstep. Steel met steel and Krev's sword fell apart. Krev flinched, eye closed and hands raised as Furyblade brought his sword to the Bandit Chiefs neck.

"Pick up a sword".

Krev opened his eyes, still firmly inside the head on his shoulders, as he stared into Furyblades slitted eyes. "Its your sword I want, furlicker"snarled Krev as he snatched a greatsword from a butchered outlaw.

Furyblade raised his shield. "Then you shall have it".

Nothing was hidden to Akatosh. He saw a forest and knew every tree, every leaf. He could count the ants in the grass and know their path. Akatosh could feel the sickly arrows in Krev the Necromancer's side and back and hear the panic of his heart, punching frantically against his chest. _More time. Just a little more._ He could feel the poison in him burning away.

Silinis Ivybrook threaded another arrow into his mulberry yew bow, never once breaking pace as he ran down his quarry. He knocked and drew the arrow back in one fluid stroke. Too slow. A icy spear thrust towards him, Silinis jerked to the right and his arrow flew far to the left. _Bloody mages._ He had to throw himself behind a rotting tree and hold close, as Krev threw a desperately threw more frozen lances to impale him. His left brow burned cold where Krev's spell glanced him, nary an inch away from piercing his eye. Through his back, he could feel the dead log splintering away, cracking under a furious barrage of ice. The air around drew colder but the sickening thuds against the wood slowed. He could feel the sweat on his back freezing. Gloved hands plucked one arrow from the quiver, dipped it into a small blue vial. He held it loose, counting the seconds between each jarring crash of wood and frost. "Surrender, Krev!", he yelled out the mage. "Face the Jarl's justice with honour and he will have mercy!"

"You'll serve me in death, elf!" Krev was cackling madly, in anticipation for the kill. Destruction magic was living up to it name and had reduced the thick old oak to a clump of splinters. _Just one more spell._ He began gathering the last of his mana into a swirling crystal nebula, flinging it to Silinis's death. The miasma tore at the grass, leaving a deep frosty groove.

Maybe the exertion of all that magic had clouded Krev's judgment. Silinis rose, leapt over the ruin log and loosed. The arrow burst through the whirling tundra. With a ghostly glow, it slammed into Krev's chest. Krev's vision began to dim, but still he edged his spell forwards. His heart beat once, once again, then no more. With its master, the blizzard died, turning to dust at Silinis's feet.

Akatosh passed his judgment as all gods do. Mediocre. They had chosen to serve, to live, to kill for others, for honour or gold. The wheel of fate spun with their breath like all Dragonborn but the Dragon soul burned stronger in others. In Dovahiel.

In her dreams, she was always a dragon. Even when she was young, and her parents left her to die by the fires of the Red Mountain, in the monsters in her dreams chased a small lonely dragon not a young dunmer. In her dreams, her scales were glossy, grey and steamed in the cold air, not like her skin which was dull and littered with scars. Her claws tore stone and plate but when she woke up from her bed of scalding dust, her hands could barely wring the the necks of rats whose teeth left map of scars on her hands even when she was a lady grown.

She didn't remember many happy memories when she was a child. The first hot meal she could remember was a charred cliff racer. She was still living in the Ashlands and was too old for the villagers to pity her, too young to sell her flesh to any brothel and too wild for any of the priests in the temples . She thought it had died flying too close to a volcanic vent up on the mountain. And so she teared its wings out of it sockets and sucked greedily at the flesh. She didn't care that she knew, as soon as the sky above her was blotted out and a roar like thunder pierced the air, that a dragon was coming to claim the cliff racer. It was the first meal she had for three days and nights. _Let me be happy before I die._ Instead the dragon Vahlok Jaariliik mistook her suicidal despair for bravery.

The dragon gave her a home, a cave that was never cold. The dragon gave her his scales, for she had none. The dragon gave her a voice and a name and...

She wasn't alone. Her dream shattered and like cold water, reality hit her. Her eyes opened with a sharp intake of air filling her lungs. Groggy eyes took in her surroundings. The well lit nordic ruin where she had began her slumber was gone now, only small embers in the braziers were left to chase away the dark. Someone was fiddling at the door. Dovahiel drew her sword from its scabbard, and waited. She could hear tumblers rising and falling, pick breaking, someone on the other side quietly cursing. There was a satisfying click and the doors flung open, letting snow and sleet into her dry ruin.

Finally, Krev hit a spot of luck. He had used every last bit of his gold to by a set of fine scaled armour with a gleaming steel axe enchanted with fire. He had brought his family shield, Bladebreaker, with him. Nobody, not his father, mather or wife thought the son of a simple farmer could make it as an adventurer but he'd show them. He threw the doors open, the gems and jewels just waiting to roll across his palm.

Her silver blur embedded itself Krev's neck with his head at either side. Dovahiel always watched how a body fell when she cleaved their head apart. His body crumpled into a crouch then spasmed, limbs jolting to and fro, blood sliding to the ground. Eventually, Dovahiel bored of his twitching and wrenched her sword out his corpse. The ruin was getting cold now. She threw Krev into the snow by his red-soaked collar and slammed the door. Soon she would be a dragon again.


End file.
